I was a bit skeptical when I saw writer/director David Ayer was also a writer for TRAINING DAY, a film I did not hate but was a bit 'over the top' for me. However, Ayer delivered here. END OF WATCH is what TRAINING DAY should have been....a gritty, hard hitting cop story that was believable.

As someone who has spent some time in a patrol car and been in some of those situations...END OF WATCH hit awfully close to home. The dialog was perfect, as was the interplay between Jake Gyllenhaal's Brian Taylor and Michael Pena's Mike Zavala, and there was a TON of subtle stuff that brought me back to "those times." No other cop movie has pinged that note for me.

I gather a lot of folks were put off by the "lack of point" (can't a story just be a story anymore?) and the documentary film style (parts made me think I was watching an episode of "Cops," achieved by the film-within-a-film aspect of Gyllenhaal's character carrying a camera around with him everywhere), but so what. Let 'em be put off; this movie rocks.

This film hits hard and fast. If you want to watch a cop movie that shows what it's really like to ride patrol, watch END OF WATCH.

4.5 out of 5 from me. Has some flaws, but BIG points for realism, soul and very solid execution all around.

Great movie! I was riveted from start to finish.The only thing that bugged me was the two cops ability to miraculously stumble upon the craziest situations. They kinda stretched it a bit in that department.

Recently spoke to a friend of mine who was a cop for 10 years, and he watched it this past weekend. I was anxious to hear from another LEO...apprehensive that my assessment was skewed.

He also said it was hands down the most "realistic" cop movie he'd ever seen. He was amazed and astounded at the level of subtle detail they were able to capture.

We agreed that there were some outlandish plot elements. That's not the parts we called "realistic." It was the interaction between the partners, the things the guys do in their interactions with "the community," all manners of stuff.

Yeah, maybe it's a bit of a stretch that so much would happen to these two, especially in such a short time frame. That's the "movie" part...fiction. But, the reality is that that is not even THAT far off...good, aggressive cops get into stuff. Lazy ones don't.

I stick by my assessment that if you want to know what's it's like to ride patrol, watch this movie. Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena each did six months worth of ride-alongs to prepare for END OF WATCH. It shows, along with some major league coaching and consulting. Really, the subtle stuff that rings true is simply beyond putting into words.

Watched it the other day, and thought it was pretty great. I have seen a couple of Ayer's films (Street Kings, Training Day, and Harsh Times) and enjoyed all of them. He seems to really love gritty LAPD films and even though this one doesn't have much going on plot wise it may be my favorite of his films so far. Firstly I think the found footage angle could of easily ruined the movie but the way it was mixed in with high grade digital camerawork worked quite well. I thought it added greatly to the tension of some of the dangerous encounters they run into. Shows how far technology has come that footage from a cheap consumer camera (the gopro in this case) can be mixed into a big budget film and not be jarring, I might have to pick one of them up! There were some limitations of this gimmick though especially when at two points we see characters holding a gun in one hand and a camcorder in the other (completely ridiculous!) but for the most part I found it a successful experiment.

The strongest points are as mentioned before the naturalistic dialogue and some nice acting from the two leads. As for the plot yeah there's not much here of substance, but in a way that kind of fits the realism presented here. Most importantly the movie worked my emotions, the tense scenes made me tense, the sad scenes made me sad, that's good filmmaking, and I'm not going to complain about this.

A side note is that William Friedkin posted on his twitter that "End of Watch was a great film, maybe the best cop movie ever" coming from a guy who directed "The French Connection" and "To Live in Die and LA" this is quite a compliment.

Loved it. Gyllenhall and Pena were really likable and the ending left me with my mouth open. Never had a show like COPS around here, but the whole camera footage-style really made me get involved in the movie.